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It is the most informing book I have ever read on how things in the US Government actually work. Aside from Nancy Pelosi and Congress as a whole, he has good words (and bad) for everyone - with few axes to grind (though he does point his finger when he thinks appropriate). T
his book makes the evening news alot more understandable - who needs Dickie Roper, when the American Congress is willing to fritter away hundreds of billions of dollars on programs neither the Defense Department nor the top brass want, just to protect jobs back in the home district.

How Bob Gates ever agreed to leave a secure job at Texas A&M to serve in one of the most thankless jobs in the world, under two diametrically opposed Presidents, is hard to imagine, but he was a man who got the job done despite internecine battles inside the DoD, members of Congress who always wanted pork going their way even if it wasn't in the national interest, and two successive vice-presidents who seemed to have a contrarian viewpoint on just about everything. He did manage to get a lot done, including eliminating nearly three dozen procurement programs, and that is to his credit as well as his sense of duty to every man and woman who wears the uniform.

This book proves the adage "too many cooks" or "too many chiefs" All have agendas and it is a wonder that anything gets done for the men and women who are actually putting their lives and well-being on the line. Excellent insight into this department in our government.

Ham625
Mar 20, 2014

A rewarding book by a person chosen by two presidents to serve as his Defense Secretary. There is much to learn from his experiences particularly his "reflections."

I have some real problems with the &amp;quot; Author Notes &amp;quot; section: Gates wasn't first in the USAF, then recruited by the CIA, he was first at the DoD and CIA, and advised to do a stint as a military officer for career reasons. He appears to be groomed from even before college (at the high school level) for his career, perhaps because his uncle was the Defense Secretary under Eisenhower? He was acting CIA director under Bush #1, and only ACTING as a historic event occurred: several thousand CIA analysts went public castigating Gates' record for &amp;quot; politicizing &amp;quot; (fictionalizing) the intel reports. A relative of Gates related to me that Gates career w/CIA began as a second-story man, or professional burglar, but I've never been able to verify this. (This is the guy who boiled cats during high school, ostensibly for science projects?)

Well worth reading regardless of where you are on the political spectrum for what it was like to run two wars for two presidents from inside the sausage factory that is Washington DC. Gates details what it takes to get things done through a huge organization with 3 million employees. The book is far more balanced and respectful than the early ‘buzz’, and his last chapter of reflections is valuable on the reasons why DC is less functional than the troops under fire deserve.